Saving Your Projects

The first preference, Automatically Save and Load My Projects, relates to a new feature that requires some explanation. As mentioned in the Introduction, the most significant under-the-hood change in Studio 10 is that it now uses components of sibling prosumer editor Pinnacle Liquid Edition. One of Edition's best features is that it continually saves all edit decisions as you make them, with undo capabilities, of course. That way, if the program or your computer crashes, you should be totally covered no lost work.

Studio now has that same capability, which is a great thing, and you can use it in one of two ways. That is, when the Automatically Save and Load My Projects checkbox is disabled, which is the default condition that exists when you first load the program, Studio will act pretty much like previous versions of Studio, except that all edits will be stored in real time. If you check the checkbox, Studio will act more like Edition.

With Automatically Save and Load Disabled

Specifically, when this option is disabled, Studio performs as follows:

• Each time you run Studio, the program starts a new project with an automatically assigned name that you can change when you first save the project.

• When you start a new project, Studio immediately creates and names a new project file, which you can change when you first save the project.

• If you attempt to close Studio or start another project, Studio will prompt you to save your project (even though all edits are already saved).

Talking to the product management folks at Pinnacle, I learned that they made this the default option because it would be most familiar to Studio users, who may feel uncomfortable leaving the program without "saving" their work (even if in reality, their work was already saved).

With Automatically Save and Load Enabled

When you enable the Automatically Save and Load feature, Studio works as follows:

• When you first run the program, Studio loads the project you were last working on a nice convenience.

• When you start a new project, Studio prompts you for a name to assign to the new project.

• When you exit the program, Studio won't prompt you to save your work, because it's already saved. You might find this disconcerting at first.

I like the second approach (Automatically Save and Load enabled) because I like naming projects at the start, and because 99 percent of the time I run Studio, I'll be editing the last project that I worked on anyway. Note that even if you started a project with Automatically Save and Load disabled, you can switch over at any time, just by clicking the checkbox.

Either way, it's great to know that your edits are being saved in real time, and that random crashes won't cost you your work. If you do crash, when you rerun Studio, you'll see the error message shown in Figure 2.42; simply click Continue, and you'll be back where you were before the crash.

Figure 2.42. If Studio crashes, you'll see this dialog box the next time you run the program. Click Continue and you should pick up where you left off.

There is one caveat, however. I've worked with Liquid Edition, and like the automatic save feature, but there's one scenario where it's kind of a pain. Specifically, with Studio 9, you could save your project and then try something totally wacky like applying six different filters to a clip to produce a bizarre effect. At the end, if you decided that you didn't like the effect, you could simply exit the project and elect not to save your changes.

With Liquid Edition, and Studio with this feature enabled, you can't simply exit and not save the project, since all your work is already saved. Instead, you have to undo each and every edit, which can get cumbersome after you've made 50 or 60 adjustments. Still, it's a pretty small price to pay for the security this feature provides.

Once again, if you opted to have Studio automatically save and load your projects, you'll save your file when you first select a new project, and never again. If you elected to save and load manually, you'll need to get familiar with most of the following procedures.

To enable automatic save and load

1.	From the Studio menu, choose Setup > Project Preferences (Figure 2.40). The Pinnacle Studio Setup Options dialog box appears, open to the Project Preferences tab (Figure 2.41).
2.	Click the Automatically Save and Load My Projects checkbox.

To save a project for the first time

1.	Do one of the following: Choose File > Save Project. Choose File > Save Project As. Press Ctrl+S. The Save As dialog box opens (Figure 2.43). Figure 2.43. You know this drill; name the file and click Save. Note the nifty new .stx extension.
2.	Find the folder where you'd like to store your project, and assign your project a file name; then click Save. Studio saves the project as an STX file, which is the file type used for all Studio 10 project files.

Tip

• Studio 10 can load projects from Studio 9, but once saved into Studio 10's STX project format, Studio 9 can no longer open them.

To save a project after naming it

• Choose File > Save Project, or press Ctrl+S.
  
  

To save a project to a new name or location

1.	Choose File > Save Project As. The Save As dialog box opens.
2.	Select a folder, type the desired file name, and click Save. Studio saves the project file.

Tip

• Note that when you use the Save Project As command, you are creating a totally separate project, and Studio duplicates all auxiliary files. If you just want to change the name, use the File > Rename Project command, shown in the next task.

To rename a project

1.	Choose File > Rename Project (Figure 2.44). Figure 2.44. Here's where you start to rename your project. The Rename Project dialog box opens (Figure 2.45). Figure 2.45. Type the new name, click OK, and you're done.
2.	Type the desired New Project Name.
3.	Click OK to close the dialog box. Studio renames the project, storing all auxiliary files under the new name (and not duplicating them as with the Save Project As command).

To respond to Studio's automatic save functions

1.	Attempt to exit Studio by doing one of the following: Choose File > Exit. Click the X icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. The dialog box shown in Figure 2.46 appears. Figure 2.46. You'll only see this if you elect not to have Studio automatically save and load your projects (though Studio will save them automatically even if you don't).
2.	Do one of the following: Click No. Studio exits. Click Cancel. You return to Studio. Click Yes. The Save As dialog box opens.
3.	Select a folder and type the desired file name.
4.	Click Save. Studio saves the project file.